Lola spent a peaceful few hours following the deliveries catching up on some sleep whilst the pups latched on and fed. By 2pm I had managed to coax Lola outside to 'powder her nose', after all she had eaten her body weight in placenta's earlier on in the day!

She did the neccessary and soon charged through the house, back to her pups.

I'm convinced she counted them when she returned, nudging each one in turn before settling herself down again.

One-by-One

Here's what we got:

1st born - at 06:00

A tri coloured male who is all white with 1 black spot on his back (my favourite dog). He is the smallest of the litter weighing in at 190g, and arrived head first.

2nd born - at 06:30

(far left)... A tri colored female who has a black spot near to her tail. She is the 2nd largest female, weighing 260g and arrived head first (Sally's favourite).

3rd born - at 06:50

A male tri coloured with a cute spot on his head (Toby's favourite). He arrived head first and weighed 210g.

4th born - at 07:10

A tri colored male who has spots on his back which almost meet. He arrived head first and weighed 225g.

5th born (far left)

A tri coloured female who has cute pin point black spots on the tip of her nose. She arrived, with difficulty and my help, feet first and weighed a whopping 280g!

6th born

A tri coloured female who has 2 black spots on her back and black around the base of her tail (my favourite bitch). She arrived as her sister did, feet first and weighed 240g.

All the pups have a bit of tan around their cheeks.

As you can see from the family favourites, there may be arguments ahead deciding who to keep!

Day 1 - Tuesday

Lola began behaving strangely today, very anxious, darting about and whimpering. More bizarrely, she ate her cooked chicken with gusto then found a place to hide, dug a hole, vomited and buried the food. I wondered if she was getting ahead of herself in terms of preparing for weaning!

As this behaviour was intermittent I decided to wait and see. In the afternoon she seemed more settled and the pups were blissfully unaware, feeding and sleeping.

Day 2 - Wednesday

Lola again was behaving oddly. She was frantically whimpering and running around the house and garden, a bit like Benny Hill used to! I followed her whilst she was on one of her 'missions' to find she has dug a hole big enough to put me in under the holly bush!

With this, I was more concerned and worried she was planning to either push another pup out, or had retained a placenta, or was planning on moving her family to a more rural environment!

I rang the vets and they agreed to see her straight away, so I bundled the pups into a hat box (all I could lay my hands on!) and sped off to the vets.

After a thorough abdominal palpation, the vet was satisified there was nothing left inside in her and decided from my description of her behaviour, she had eclampsia or calcium deficiency. He gave a bolus dose of intra musculuar calcium and some tablets to come home with. Soon after, she settled and has been much better since, thank goodness.

The pups were checked at the same time and given a clean bill of health.

Day 3 - Thursday

Lola remains calm, eating and not throwing up and for the first time was happy and excited to go for a short walk in the fields. Meanwhile the pups slept happily.

I weighed them all agin today and they have all gained an admirable amount of weight, no wonder Lola needs Calcium!

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